The invention relates generally to foot activated musical drum impacting devices, and more particularly to a device used in conjunction with a musical drum which translates foot motion into motion of a mallet to impact the surface of a drum.
Standard foot activated musical drum pedal devices are generally known to include a base, a foot pedal, and a mallet head mechanically linked together to translate foot motion into a drum beating activity. These devices are generally used in connection with a large musical base drum. The pedal device generally is fixed to a bottom portion of the bass drum rim. The musician generally sits back and above the pedal device, and the device is activated by the musician depressing the forward end of the foot pedal which cause the mallet head to impact a surface of the a bass drum.
The velocity of the mallet head as it impacts the drum defines, in part, the quality of the music produced by the drum. In general, the greater the velocity of the mallet as it strikes the drum head, the greater the volume and the sharper the attack of the resulting drum note.
Many known drum pedals directly link the toe end of a foot pedal to a crossarm, supported by a pair of uprights, generally above the toe end of the foot pedal. The linkage may be a flexible member such as nylon cordage that is attached to a rear portion of a curved lever arm with upwardly facing pulley groves, and then wrapped through the pulley grooves over the forward end of the lever arm, and downward to terminate and attach directly at the toe end of the foot pedal. More expensive models replace the lever arm with a sprocket wheel and employ a chain drive as the flexible member. The chain is attached to a rearward portion of the sprocket wheel, wrapped over the top of the wheel and then downward to terminate and attach directly to the toe end of the foot pedal.
The known drum pedals present a compound leverage system whereby the downward motion of a toe end of the drum pedal is converted into a generally arcuate forward swing of the mallet head into an impact collision with the drum head. The leverage system in these known devices converts a downward arcuate velocity of the toe end of the foot pedal into a forward arcuate velocity of the mallet head, generally in a ratio greater than 1:1. That is, the mallet head actually strikes the drum head at a velocity greater than the greatest velocity of the toe end of the pedal as it travels downwardly under the drummer""s foot. These known devices provide means to some extent to adjust this ratio, usually by shortening or lengthening the effective length of the mallet handle.
For either type of pedal, the termination and direct attachment of the flexible member at the toe end of the foot pedal however prevents obtaining further mechanical advantage at the foot pedal whereby the downward velocity of the foot pedal can be more greatly amplified to cause the mallet head to strike the drum surface with even greater velocity.
Carlson, U.S. Pat. No. 4,955,277, Sep. 11, 1990, generally discloses an improved drum pedal with means to further magnify the velocity of the downward foot motion of the drummer, thereby further magnifying the velocity of the mallet as the mallet strikes the drum. This is generally effected by having a pulley or sprocket wheel assembly at the toe end of the foot pedal, and by attaching a flexible member to the crossarm lever and passing it down and around the toe end wheel, and then upwardly to a point of attachment, either on the crossarm lever again, or on a second crossbar.